To be 100% clear, her point is that it's not about the weight loss. The point is not the vanity. The point is to stop being afraid of finding out what you're capable of. The point is developing a skill, and tapping into your athletic potential. Yes, the author is a woman who was once overweight and now weighs less than me, but this is about her strength journey, not her weight loss journey.
"Lost 13 inches of bellyfat, 67 lbs and learned to meditate."
Things at the gym have changed quite a bit in a little over a year. When I began the Starting Strength program I couldn’t perform an un-weighted squat, and when my coach wasn’t there I would all but get run off of the equipment. It’s been a while now since anyone has tried to give me unwanted advice or interfered with my workouts, even when training alone. Now, in between sets, I get asked about my program and lift technique.
After I answered a couple of her questions, a younger and overweight woman replied that what I was doing would not work for her. It would, of course, make her bigger and bulkier, and I could not possibly understand because I didn’t know what it was like to have a weight problem. She is smaller than I was when I first started training and her trying to skinny shame me was hard to wrap my head around. It is beginning to sink in; I am no longer the fat chick trying to do squats.
I used to meditate in a quiet room with candles and incense searching for calm and discipline. That was fine, and l cherish my quiet candled room. However calm focus is needed every day in life and life is seldom quiet. I meditate now when I am under the bar.
The harnessing of the mind and the body, breath held and all the noise in your head stops and the only thing that exists is you and the weight. In all my years working in the “Alternative Health Field” I have sought the mind body connection, the grounding, the centeredness, with only slight success. Now I am beginning to understand, beginning to understand why I lift, how simple life really is. All the candles in the world aren’t going to teach you that type of focus and discipline.
I have noticed in my business dealings I am viewed differently, approached differently, and their opinion is much less important than before. I navigate there the same way I do in the weight room.
Several of my friends train with me now, all women. Others interest in what I simply saw as me getting healthy is humbling. 210lbs girls don’t think people are interested in them working to lose their ‘fish bowl’ as my friend so lovingly calls hers.
62 weeks of strength training have flown by. My most recent program was the Texas Method and it saw me through my Great Grandmother’s fast decline, her death, and a car wreck. It also pushed me to my 1 rep squat PR of 225.
This is not where I saw this trip taking me. And why I decided to listen to that strong old guy is most days beyond me. I do know that now I am stronger than I have ever been. I dropped 13 inches off my waist and close to 5 inches off each thigh. I weigh 143 lbs., lighter than I have been since I was 12 years old.
Rarely am I asked how I got stronger. Much more often I am asked how I lost so much weight and kept it off. It doesn’t matter, the advice is the same. Buy the book and do what it says.
http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/testimonials/60172-continuance-lost-13-inches-bellyfat-67lbs-learned-meditate.html
